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The Movie Game That Isn't: Stranglehold's Dynamic Cinematic Gameplay

The Spin Attack, one of the most iconic John Woo moments, was the first experiment for the Stranglehold team in dynamic cinematic gameplay. It was also very, very complex to produce, according to Glancy. The team had to figure out how to recreate the quick-paced editing of Woo's shootouts through complex camera sequences. They adjusted for two camera distances. One is close-up, to focus on Tequila's angry face and his shiny police badge, and the other extends from his arm length out for another fifteen feet.
It took the team months to get the code right. Some costumes didn't work with the base camera edits. "In different outfits, the camera would focus on where Tequila's police badge normally was in his default clothing, and we wondered why the camera zoomed in on his crotch," Glancy joked. Also, extensive programming had to be done to get enemies to ragdoll upon being shot, or they'd clip through the environment. "Looking at it now, it's amazing to see how this phenomenal amount of work went into something that happens onscreen in just a few short seconds," he said.

It turns out that there was a fourth Tequila Bomb that didn't make the cut. The Akimbo Bomb would have let players relive the classic Woo shootout in which an actor would walk through an area, arms spread wide, shooting waves of enemies. The problem, Glancy said, was that there wasn't enough time to perfect arm motions, or give it a proper visual polish. After tweaking the Spin Attack, the Akimbo Bomb felt a bit redundant, since it took even more control out of the player's hands. Ultimately the team didn't find it compelling so they killed it. For future action games, Glancy would like to re-attempt an akimbo mode, but perhaps as a Quick Timer Event in the vein of Resident Evil 4 or God of War.

Perhaps the most famous Woo moment, however, is the Stand-Off. Glancy showed off a few clips from "Face/Off" to illustrate the idea of the tense build-up to a gunfight. He also revealed that besides the Spin Attack, it was the feature that went through some of the most iterations. It couldn't have the quick edits of its cinematic counterparts; it needed to be easy to understand and control.

Early versions had players moving, aiming, and dodging, but it was too overwhelming to handle. They planned on setting up a pie-chart timer and panning the camera from gunman to gunman but feared that it would be too complicated for players. After months of failed drafts, the team settled on a pan-and-aim mini-game. The schedule bled from the time lost on this feature's problems. The team had to customize cinematics for many of the instances, and programmers had to learn the software for the cinema tools after they really got into creating them, which wasn't optimal for nailing Stand-Offs in a timely fashion. Also, in a moment that makes one question the collective intelligence of focus groups, enemies could accidentally kill each other if the player dodged bullets correctly (just like John Woo movies) but focus testers didn't understand why the enemies were dying.

At the finale of the lecture, Glancy shifted his focus toward the future of this style of gameplay. Whether it's another Stranglehold game (mind you, no confirmation of such a thing) or a different action shooter, he'd like to see gameplay that lets players combine power-ups, such as a Barrage blending into a Spin Attack, as it empowers players to do more with the game. He alsowants to program a better camera flow between cinematic moments to provide the sorts of edits that movie buffs have seen in Woo's films. Ultimately, a big part of Stranglehold's overwhelmingly positive reception lies in gameplay that melds big cinematic moments with consistent gameplay. If you're a fan of these sorts of titles, keep your eyes peeled for what this team will unleash in the future.